During the winter 2007-2008 an interesting collaborative project was devised between two artists from Iran and the Netherlands. Behrouz Rae and Ilse van den Berk have been working together on a project entitled SOJOURN IN WHITE related to a stopover in Saksala during winter time.
This project challenges the artists to go out of the box from their usual practice and work in a dialogue with the work of the other. The result is an installation presented in different rooms of Saksala with objects found in the Saksala building and drawings/paintings where the artists have followed the creative steps of each other.
Behrouz Rae and Ilse van den Berk responded to each other through different layers of each separate works. The curator of the project, Claire Watson, is supervising the process and even though she has returned to Australia she is in close contact to guide the artists through the project's the development.
The planning is to have the installation and exhibition on different other places in the world. There are contacts in St. Petersburg (Russia), Victoria (Australia) and Boston (USA). It would be nice to have Finnish artists involved in the next part of this project.
The Iranian artist Behrouz Rae has been in the art centre from February until the end of April. He is very interested in the human history of the place he is staying. He discovers the attic (by -20) and has found the tracks of the past when Saksala was an old people’s home and some rests of the past of the time Marja de Jong has lived in the Netherlands. He has not any idea of the meaning of the objects, but has made an installation SPEARED MEMORIES 1 by making his own memorial history about the tracks. The whole (unused and not renovated) attic is now a special area like the place where archaeologists are carrying out excavations. It will tell every visitor an own story related to the personal relation with the past of Saksala.
Another part of SPEARED MEMORIES is the second installation in the basement of the building.
These installations of Behrouz Rae will also be interesting in relation to the exhibition HAUKIVUORI MUISTOISSAMME 2 which will be installed in June.
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The artists Behrouz Rae (Iran) and Fereshte Moosavi (Iran/UK) are selected for the WOOD/INSTALLATION symposium in the LABYRINTH ‘FINNISH FOREST – A SOURCE OF ART’ to take part in the first part of the symposium.
Both artists are collaborating in making a visual monument for the people related to Saksala. The portraits which are the result of the collaboration
have been installed in the LABYRINTH as a portrait gallery.
Different persons are part of the gallery, as a worker in the past of Saksala, as a neighbor living next door, as the artistic component of the art centre, as the technical supporter of Saksala.
The second part of the symposium will be executed during the end of July and the beginning of August.
An artist from Turkey and one from Canada are already selected.
There is still a place available for a Finnish artist. Finnish artists can apply until May 15, after that date the committee will select the artist. If no Finnish artist will apply or is not qualified, there will be a personal invitation to an artist.
The curator of the symposium is the sculptor Lucien den Arend, he is living in Kangasniemi.
The symposium is supported by the Arts Council of Finland.
Länsi Savo is contributing in the maintenance of the LABYRINTH.
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